Types of charge points

There are 3 types of charge points available to charge your electric vehicle:

Home and workplace charge points

Fast public charge points

Rapid charge points

Home charge points

To charge your vehicle at home you will need a safe off-street parking such as driveway, garage or carport. Cables for electric vehicles are usually not very long, so make sure that the parking space is near a suitable plug socket (you should not use an extension lead as it could overheat).

It is recommended that a specific home charging point with its own circuit is installed in the home. To fully charge an electric vehicle overnight takes approximately six to eight hours. Slow home charging is the ideal method of fully charging an electric vehicle.

It is essential that an electrician carries out a safety check on the wiring and the electricity supply in your home before fitting a home charging point.

The cost of home charging will depend on the user’s home tariff, particularly the night-time tariff. This will be added to your home electricity bill.

The ecar team will be working with electricity supply companies to ensure all electricity customers can benefit from tariffs that favour home charging.

OLEV has a grant available for the supply and installation of smart home charging points worth up to £500

Public Sector charge points

The ecar project is encouraging employers to install workplace charge points for staff use. Electric car users may charge in private car parks at the workplace, particularly after a long commute. This point is similar to a home charger. The car is plugged into this specific charging point and is left to charge on a trickle charge.

The cost of charging at a workplace charging point will be added to the electricity bill of that particular building.

The ecar team is also encouraging businesses to purchase electric vehicles as part of their fleet (see Incentives for Business Section). With a workplace charging point this will allow businesses to charge their vehicles on site.

Fast public charge points

ecar have installed fast public charge points in key locations in Northern Ireland. Public charge points have been installed in:

There are now 334 charge points in NI's charging infrastructure. Each fast public charge point has two connections, enabling two vehicles to charge at once. To see what public charge points have been installed so far please see our charge point map.

Electric car owners are able to use these ecar public charge points with a secure ecar access card. For guidance on how to use a public charge point, the following video will provide a step by step approach.

With advances in electric vehicle battery technology, and some new models due on to the market very soon, charging times are expected to come down.

Rapid charge points

There are 14 rapid charge points installed on or near strategic routes throughout Northern Ireland. This means that no-one is more than 30 miles from a rapid charger.

Although not all electric vehicles currently on the market are capable of rapid charging, those that do will gain approximately 80% charge from flat in around 20 minutes, hence is an ideal way to “top up” while making longer journeys.